Sunday, September 03, 2006

Elton John flies into Poland today to perform at the Sopot Festival, the annual celebration of all things middle of the road musically in the Baltic coastal resort. As well as playing the old favourites and showing us his new pair of glasses, Elton will be meeting up with legendary Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa.

But what will the two superstars talk about?

Maybe it will be Walesa’s comment last year that homosexuality was ‘intrinsically evil’?

Elton John – who ‘married’ his partner David Furnish last year in London – wrote an article in the Guardian in 2005 on world homophobia. After listing abuses in United Arab Emirates, Jamaica and Uganda, he wrote:

‘In Poland the man who will become President this year, Lech Kaczynski, banned a Gay Pride 'Equality Parade', saying it would be 'sexually obscene'. Several Pride marches have been banned in Poland. Predictably, there has been a simultaneous growth in harassment and intimidation of gay people by right-wing groups.'

So I wonder if John and Walesa will be having a philosophical discussion about the meaning of the word ‘evil’ in Sopot tonight?

Update: I am watching Elton John in concert from Sopot now (well, someone had to!) and he has just introduced the third song with: ‘This is a song about love and tolerance…’. I wonder what he means?

Update 2: In between the end of set and the ‘encore’ Lech Walesa was introduced to Elton on stage. They first showed a photo of when the singer met the Solidarity leader in the 1980s - both of them appeared to be in their New Romantics period. Walesa then gave a little speech, saying how much he appreciated the support of Elton all those years ago.

Then when he had finished the two stars from the 1980s embraced on stage. In fact, they had a big cuddle, patting each other’s backs and exchanged kisses on the cheek! It was all very passionate and emotional.

Then before Elton began his final number he gave a little speech that went like this:

“I come back to Poland 22 years after that photo with Lech Walesa was taken. He is a great man. I love coming to Poland, the audiences are always so great.

But I am a gay man and I have been saddened by the recent aggression towards gay people in Poland. I just want to say that gay people are not a threat to anyone and WE JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE.’

And then Elton settled down at the piano to play ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word.’

What I mean is, a society where there's no monogamy and relationships are fluid. Very few gay couples (even married ones such as Elton) are actually monogomous. They need to go out and refresh the male energy, so to speak.

That type of society would fall apart very quickly. Which is what the Marxist Utopians want.

That they've started in Poland is most interesting to me. They must see Poland as a danger to the rest of Europe, since it's far more conservative and understands the ugly nature of full-on communism. This subtle communism might actually work there, in that it's not obvious what it's purpose is.

For a start, I don’t think you will find much about homosexuality in Marx.

Very few gay couples (even married ones such as Elton) are actually monogomous.

I am not sure about that. Evidence? For sure, there are very many hedonistic young gays, but the older ones are much like everyone else – they need stability.

That they've started in Poland is most interesting to me. They must see Poland as a danger to the rest of Europe, since it's far more conservative and understands the ugly nature of full-on communism.

Lucyna: the reason why Poland is so far behind the social progress of western Europe is because of Polish communism! They bottled up social movements…and now Polish society has to go through what the west went through 40 years ago.

The way they work now is to pick victim groups that can undermine the status quo.

In the West, they started with Feminism. In NZ, they also got in bed with the Maori.

Homosexual and Islamic groups are the next wave of victim groups to subvert the status quo.

I know Poland is way behind in this - just because this sort of thing happened in the West, doesn't mean it has to happen in Poland. It doesn't mean it's a good thing.

In NZ the result is now nearly half of all babies being born out of wedlock, many of those to single mothers on benefits. We've had a massive petty crime spike over the last 20 years due to the change in demographic.

The gay activists' agenda in NZ now is Hate Speech, reduction of the age of consent, gay adoption, abortion law reform and voluntary euthanasia.

None of the above are a big shock horror, to you of course (coming from Britain), unless you understand the long term results of such policies.

Life becomes cheap with easy death at the begining and at the end. Relationships become meaningless with the expansion of marriage to include everything under the sun. Children still need to be looked after, so the state has to step in. And the state will make sure that the children are indoctrinated to accept the new order.

Gay activists are the current Marxist vanguard, hiding under the guise of "equality". And all the supporters act as useful idiots.

The gay activists' agenda in NZ now is Hate Speech, reduction of the age of consent, gay adoption, abortion law reform and voluntary euthanasia.

Confused. You are mixing up many different issues here. Abortion law is not on the gay agenda for obvious reasons.

I agree that the ‘identity politics’ of the last couple of decades is a bad thing – I think that ‘progressive politics’ should be about what we have in common, not what why we are ‘different’ – and the ‘hate speech’ obsession is a red herring (people have a right to hate something if they want to) but in Poland the problem is that the communist authorities tried to bury any kind of social dissent.

And now we have freedom of speech here and conservatives don’t like it.

The real question is: why are conservatives sooo insecure that they can’t deal with a few gays?

We have a Marxist gay activist MP that has abortion as a moral issue on his list. Abortion links in, because then you can have free-for-all sex without consequence and it perpetuates the idea that life is cheap.

why are conservatives sooo insecure that they can’t deal with a few gays?

You've got to get the question right.

Most conservatives are too busy having families and just making a living to be politically active and constantly fend off the repeated attacks on various social institutions by the activists.

As one of our MPs said, and I'm going to paraphrase him, they don't have families they have heaps of time. I have to take my kids to soccer, they get together and plot and scheme.

If Elton and his ilk just wanted to be left alone, then he wouldn't have agitated for gay marriage. He wouldn't be agitating for those same social changes to be occuring in Poland.

The big social change will _not_ be gay marriage, the big social change (vis a vis gay people) in western society has already taken place. Gay people can and do set up households together (sometimes with kids).This is actually new (openly and legally it's only been happening in the last 30-40 years or so). It's been slower in Poland for lots of reasons including the rotten housing situation (only slowly getting better) which made non-traditional living arrangements difficult.

But in general terms in western and westernized societies, the toothepaste is officially out of the tube, good luck in stuffing it back in.

Considering the status quo, there are some choices:

1) make that illegal and (try to) use the power of the state to dissolve such partnerships as do exist and prevent further ones from happening (by force if necessary)2) figure out how to legally protect all concerned (including the children)3) allow gay households but with no legal protections for the members thereof (including children)4) shutting one's eyes and wishing it would all go away is not a realistic option (beyond the level of the indivicual).

Fuming about a vast non-conservative conspiracy to make society crumble doesn't help anyone, anywhere anyhow.

As for gay people and monogamy, I'd say they're no better at it than straight people are.

Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of "committed" or "monogamous" typically means something radically different than in heterosexual marriage.

· A Canadian study of homosexual men who had been in committed relationships lasting longer than one year found that only 25 percent of those interviewed reported being monogamous." According to study author Barry Adam, "Gay culture allows men to explore different...forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals."[16]

· The Handbook of Family Diversity reported a study in which "many self-described 'monogamous' couples reported an average of three to five partners in the past year. Blasband and Peplau (1985) observed a similar pattern."[17]

· In The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported that, in a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years:Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all have been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.[18]

As the following chart shows, the extremely low rate of sexual fidelity among homosexual men dramatically contrasts with the high rate of fidelity among married heterosexuals.

The chart then shows fidelty for 85% married females, 75.5% married males, 4.5% for Homosexual males in their current relationship.

According to McWhirter and Mattison, most homosexual men understood sexual relations outside the relationship to be the norm and viewed adopting monogamous standards as an act of oppression.

In their Journal of Sex Research study of the sexual practices of older homosexual men, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that only 2.7 percent of older homosexuals had only one sexual partner in their lifetime.[19]

Brad Hayton provides insight into the attitudes of many homosexuals towards commitment and marriage:Homosexuals...are taught by example and belief that marital relationships are transitory and mostly sexual in nature. Sexual relationships are primarily for pleasure rather than procreation. And they are taught that monogamy in a marriage is not the norm [and] should be discouraged if one wants a good "marital" relationship.[20]

Lucyno!Show me the money!That article is a product of the Family Research Council. A quick scan of their site finds no positive words for homosexuals whatsoever (unless 'get therapy you sicko!' is helpful advice in your world view). Considering their agenda, I take them about as seriously as I do the Institute for Creation Science.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm not interested in why you don't like homosexuals.I am interested in what kind of legal status you have in mind for those homosexuals who establish households in Poland. Do you favor:

1) make it illegal and use the power of the state to dissolve such partnerships as do exist and prevent further ones from happening (by force if necessary)

2) allow gay households but with no legal protections for the members thereof (including children)

I think you are a homophobe. I don’t mean that as an insult (the way people scream ‘fascist’ at each other – I mean you have an irrational fear of homosexuality.

they don't have families they have heaps of time. I have to take my kids to soccer, they get together and plot and scheme.

To claim that political activism is dependant on how many kids you have is irrational and illogical. The most political active people in Poland are the catholic right. And they have about 3,000 kids each.

As I say, irrational.

If Elton and his ilk just wanted to be left alone, then he wouldn't have agitated for gay marriage.

Exactly. Gays are politically active because they don’t have equal rights. If they did we wouldn’t be having this argument anyway.

the meaning of "committed" or "monogamous" typically means something radically different than in heterosexual marriage.

Well, so what? Younger gay men are on average more promiscuous that heterosexuals…older ones are about the same. Again, so what? How does that affect you?

It doesn’t. And worrying about things that are nothing to do with you is illogical. A phobia.

I'm a rightwing conservative political blogger, who was first especially interested in how radical feminism has underminded societies. Now I've been reading more about gay activism. Where before I wasn't particulary bothered by gay activism, now I am.

Hard core gay activists aim to destroy marriage. Part of the plan is to first expand it's meaning to include same-sex couples. Those same arguments allows for polygamy and polyamoury. As has already occured in the Netherlands. Polygamy is particularly insidious, because it allows for women to be treated like possessions. Legalised polygamy would also make a country far more attractive to Islamic immigration.

There is more research out there that shows, without a doubt, that women and children are far safer in married monogomous relationships than any other. Might have have something to do with the committment involved.

School curriculums are being changed in a number of Western countries in an effort to normalise gay relationships and gay sex to children. I don't know if you heard that recent research has shown that children listening to music with hardcore sexually explicit language engage in sexual activity on average 2 years before their peers.

Hedonistic societies apparently disintergrate after 3 generations, because the elements necessary for stable relationships and raising children in safe environments cease to be passed on.

As a woman with children, wondering what type of future my children will inherit, this concerns me greatly.

Gay activism just happens to be in the firing line right now, because their goals conflict directly with mine.

I'm disappointed, Beetroot. You seemed resonably intelligent, yet you resort to labelling me as a homophobe. I am not afraid of gay people nor do I hate them. Which is the definition of homophobia.

It is a typical leftist response to resort to, which I didn't think you were. But then I haven't read enough of you to know, so will reserve judgement.

Hedonistic Society : A society that operates on the assumption that human happiness and pleasure seeking are equivalent, or put another way, that there is no difference between these two qualities.

As to your upcoming marriage, of course it won't affect you. It only affects future generations as less and less value is ascribed to marriage and the need to commit on that level. In other countries, men and women cohabit rather than marry. If they do marry, it's only after trying out various "partners" first.

I would recommend reading up on the devasting social changes in Sweden and Norway to get an idea where all this is going.

BTW, you mentioned gay marriage = equal rights. Before gay marriage occured, no one, gay or straight had the right to "marry" someone of the same sex. And there was no law against gay people marrying someone of the opposite sex. So it's not about "equal rights". It's redefinition, getting back to the first thing I said about redefining society in their own image.

"As to your upcoming marriage, of course it won't affect you. It only affects future generations"

I actually value the of social conservatives in being skeptical about big societal change. But in this case they've utterly failed to convince me that public same sex pairings are a threat. The "it'll take generations" for the negative consequences to appear is a non-starter. No one knows the future and vague alarmist threats about what could happen that defy logic and common sense aren't a basis for civil law.And anyway, the big change has already taken place, even without the legal ceremony Mr John and his partner have been a public couple for a number of years now. That's new, in previous generations the partner would be introduced as a 'personal assistant' or 'manager' or 'long-time friend and companion'. The argument now should be how to legally protect the parties in such couples (making a commitment means making yourself vulnerable after all and society has a stake in protecting adults who want to commit).

Yes, this is a change in marriage/coupling habits but there have been lots of changes to marriage laws and customs over the years. For most of human history a wife was property (the old Polish 'wife' suffix -owa means 'belonging to' after all) and as recently as the 60's the legal status of married women in most western countries vis a vis their husbands was roughly that of a legal minor.I remember when a married woman couldn't get a bank loan without her husband's permission, he was under no such obligation.You might not like everything that feminism brought but do you really want to be your husband's property?

"No one, gay or straight had the right to "marry" someone of the same sex. And there was no law against gay people marrying someone of the opposite sex. So it's not about "equal rights". It's redefinition, getting back to the first thing I said about redefining society in their own image."

Interesting, tweak this a bit and it's _exactly_ the same argument used by defenders of anti-miscegnegation laws:

No one no matter their race has the right to "marry" someone of a different race. And there is no law against of any race marrying someone of the same race. So it's not about "equal rights". It's redefinition, getting back to the first thing I said about redefining society in their own image.

You might think that gay civil rights aren't exactly the same as racial civil rights historically and I'd probably agree, but the legal 'logic' of those against same sex and different race marriage are identical.

And _everybody_ wants to redefine society in their own image. That's like using 'they breathe oxygen! Oxygen I tell you!" as an argument.

I'm disappointed, Beetroot. You seemed resonably intelligent, yet you resort to labelling me as a homophobe.

Actually I am more than reasonably intelligent, although sometimes I can be a little unreasonable.

But not this time. Your arguments against homosexuality are illogical and irrational, so I stick to my statement about homophobia.

It is a typical leftist response to resort to, which I didn't think you were.

I was a leftist for a long time and a very active one. But I no longer am a leftist because left wing politics is a do do. In fact in much of the world politics appears to be a do do too. I now think of myself as a libertarian, if that clears anything up.

As to your upcoming marriage, of course it won't affect you. It only affects future generations as less and less value is ascribed to marriage and the need to commit on that level.

In that case you should be applauding gays wanting same sex marriages. Commitment!

Mike – you make an interesting point about housing shortage and the situation of gays in Poland. Expand please.

Basically, the housing shortage in Poland made all sorts of living arrangements difficult.

Background for those unfamiliar with the realities of WWII Poland:After WWII huge, chunks of most the major cities were wiped out and uninhabitable including most of the buildings people lived in. Building housing for everybody was slow and expensive and not a communist priority (it made a nice carrot and stick at the same time). The basic result was one of (maybe the worst) housing shortage in the industrialized world and the quest for housing impacted peoples lives in a way reserved for natural disasters in many parts of the world.It wasn't unheard of for a couple to divorce and still share the same apartment because neither had (or could find) anywhere else to live. As late as the 90's it was assumed that a young married couple would begin their lives together with the parents of whichever had a bedroom to spare. A place of their own was a luxury very few young married could dream of. A couple might not get their own place until their kids were almost grown (or go straight from living with their parents to living with their married children).In other words, housing was scarce and jealously guarded. There was a semilegal private housing market but the rates were exhorbitant by local standards (one standard practice in some places was for rent to be a penson's entire regular salary, leaving them to find extra sources of income for basic living expenses).In this kind of situation unorthodox living arrangements would be difficult to arrange.

Let's say Hanna (26) and Beata (28) meet and fall in love in 1985. Unless one of them is very well off or very fortunate they're not going to be able to move in together. Chances are both are still living with their parents. Or maybe one has an apartment from their job, in which case they're probably prohibited from taking in borders (what the legal status of the other would be) or 'unauthorized' persons for any length of time (and there was probably no shortage of nosy neighbors to let the building administration go about that person who spends so much time there).In short, the basic question of a young couple that wants to live together is brought up short.Let's say Beata's parents are _very_ understanding and approve of Hanna moving in. Good luck getting that living arrangement registered (without which it was/is technically illegal to live together).

The housing situation is a lot better now than then and continues to slowly get better (with stops and starts) and if Hanna and Beata meet now they'll be in a much better situation but that's a very recent development.In other words, same sex couples until recently didn't have the infrastructure in place to _be_ couples as most people understand the term, even in private.

This is one case where I'm sure Lucyna would prefer the communist way of doing things...

This is one case where I'm sure Lucyna would prefer the communist way of doing things...

What? You mean invading a country under the guise of liberating them and then going on joint victory parades, sending a huge number off to gulags, killing as many of the leaders as possible, standing by why the capital city is destroyed and then proceeding to reinvade and resubdue the populace?

Mmmm, considering that my Dad was one of those gulag prisoners as a child, and then was unable to return to his home after the war because his father and brother fought under the exiled army banner, and my mother left Communist Poland in the 60s - I know more than I probably would have otherwise known about Communists and how they operate.

I also know how Communists operate on a softly-softly approach, having grown up in Socialist NZ and watched an increasingly rainbow dominated Labour have their way with the social laws here. Like redefining parenthood so that gays can be fathers too, but in the process destroying the concept of parents having rights to their biological children - instead we have "reponsibilities". Nevermind that the blood tie can never be understood by these people.

Our PM is supposedly a closet lesbian who cried at her wedding to a man who recently had some sort of police problem at LAX that's been kept hushed up. And we have this huge scandal where Labour was caught with their hands in the till taking public money to fund their election campaign to stay in power at any cost, while in this term in govt they just may succeed in pushing through more anti-parent legislation - the anti-smacking bill.

This is how the gay agenda is affecting me personally. If I were not being affected personally, I would most likely not give a toss. I would never have looked into Marxist links into removing all moral constraints from society so that the uber-human could result. Apparently tried in Soviet Russia in their first session of parliament, or whatever you call it, resulting in such destructive behaviours that they reversed the legislation a few years later, and instead focused on strengthening the family.

"What? You mean invading a country under the guise of liberating them ()"

This has nothing to do with my post which had a gratuitous snarky comment that you probably approve of unofficial restraints on gay couples being able to become ... couples.

"Like redefining parenthood so that gays can be fathers too"

Most gay men (barring fertility problems) can be biological fathers though most either don't want to or don't want to go trough the traditional child-creation act.

"but in the process destroying the concept of parents having rights to their biological children - instead we have "reponsibilities"."

I'm afraid I agree. Parents don't have 'rights' to their children as children aren't property. They have many and varied responsibilities toward them and the legal obligation to fulfill those. If they default badly enough the legal obligation is removed.Or am I missing something?

"Nevermind that the blood tie can never be understood by these people."

I don't understand. Is there a point here? About adoption vs childbirth? Something else?

"Our PM is supposedly a closet lesbian who cried at her wedding"

Sounds like NZ politics is funnier than I'd ever imagined.

"while in this term in govt they just may succeed in pushing through more anti-parent legislation - the anti-smacking bill."

The dastards! They're opposed to parents kissing their children???(nb: intended as humor)

"This is how the gay agenda is affecting me personally."

You're either too subtle for me or you haven't demonstrated that a 'gay agenda' even exists, much less that it's affecting you personally.

"[the CCCP] removing all moral constraints from society ... they reversed the legislation a few years later, and instead focused on strengthening the family."

Exactly! There's never been any communist society with any tolerance of homosexuality whatsoever!Gay rights movements are the exclusive provenance of western civil societies as part of an overall trend in such societies toward equality of access and widening of civil liberties in living according to one's (as opposed to the government's) conscience.This should indicate that out gay people are a sign of a healthy society not a communist creeping plot.

Exactly! There's never been any communist society with any tolerance of homosexuality whatsoever!

Well, because the aim in the West is to create a Utopia by slower means. Apparently, the Soviets failed because communism wasn't implemented properly. This is what I hear again and again from a number of people I know that are very sympathetic to communism. They expect it to take a very long time, a couple of hundred years, so are not in the hurry the Soviets were.

The only way to do this is to break links with the past. Families are connections to the past, so those links need to be weakened and broken.

NZ politics is so funny they're into the realm of the ridiculous now. Apparently Britain has the highest single parent rate in the EU - shock, horror at 8%. NZ's is 24% due to the massive social changes over the past 30 years. It's like we are experiment ground zero.

Somehow I don't think we're going to turn into the glorious Utopia the Commies are dreaming about anytime soon.

No, those Scandinavian countries have a massive Muslim influx to the point now where Malmo is almost completely Muslim and non-Muslims are either attacked and robbed or raped as a form of warfare against them.

I find it strange that I know people sympathetic to communism as well. Once they find out how I feel about it, they tend to stop talking about it to me. Probably because I'm basically non-convertable.

I was working from someone from Malmo all this summer and you would think that he would have mentioned that Malmo is almost completely Muslim and non-Muslims are either attacked and robbed or raped as a form of warfare against them.

Almost 90% of all robberies that are reported to the police were committed by gangs, not individuals. “When we are in the city and robbing, we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes.” This argument was repeated several times. “Power for me means that Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explain, laughingly, that “there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you’re robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you’ve succeeded, it simply feels good.” “It’s so easy to rob Swedes, so easy.” “We rob every single day, as much as we want to, whenever we want to.” The immigrant youth view Swedes as stupid and cowardly: “The Swedes don’t do anything, they just give us the stuff. They’re so wimpy.” The young robbers don’t plan their crimes: “No, we just see some Swedes that look rich or have nice mobile phones and then we rob them.”

You are so cool! I do not think I have read through anything like this before.So nice to find someone with some unique thoughts on this subject.Really.. many thanks for starting this up. This web site is one thing that is required on the web, someone with a little originality!